Following criticism of TV political talk shows by Hu Fu (胡佛) of Academia Sinica, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said yesterday that the problem of political bias in such programs lies not with academics or the media, but with the government.
On accepting an honorary doctorate from National Taiwan University on Monday, Hu said that without a sense of morality to guide it, society quickly loses the ability to differentiate right from wrong.
Political commentators on such programs often cling to their views regardless of the arguments, and occasionally stoop to lying in defense of their views, he said as he called on intellectuals to be more considerate and principled.
Hu said that for academics to tailor their facts to support the point they are making at that particular moment in time, only to say something else on another occasion, was highly unprofessional, and criticized those who sought to bolster their argument simply by claiming that they “love Taiwan.”
Hu’s comments came in the wake of a recent series of incidents involving the nation’s political talk shows.
Late last week, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) threatened legal action after guests on Formosa Television’s (FTV, 民視) Boss Talk (頭家來開講) accused President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of interfering with the judiciary in the Supreme Court’s latest ruling convicting former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and his wife on bribery charges.
On Monday, Department of Health Minister Yaung Chih-liang (楊志良) accused Talking Show (大話新聞) of misrepresenting facts by claiming 600,000 people’s national health insurance cards have been “locked up” because they failed to pay premiums, and by saying that the government only cares about Chinese, and not Taiwanese.
In response, spokesperson Chang Cheng-feng (張正芬) of SET-TV (三立電視台), which hosted the show, said the facts used in the program were taken from a report in the Chinese-language Apple Daily on Nov. 8.
During a press conference held by the DPP caucus yesterday, Kuan said that because of the peculiarities of call-in talk shows in Taiwan, it was possible for individual programs to advocate distinctly pro-green or distinctly pro-blue political standpoints, but that the government was showing favoritism to the pro-blue media.
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